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January 20, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Jun 5, 2004

Haze of perpetual highway debt

The Diet has approved controversial legislation for privatizing the nation's deficit-ridden highway system. The need for privatization is widely recognized, yet doubts remain about the ways and means of achieving it. The fundamental question is whether the new system will really serve the purpose of...

EDITORIALS

Jun 4, 2004

Bumpy road ahead for Kanebo

Kanebo Ltd., once an icon of Japanese industry, faces a grim future as it begins to restructure under the direction of a government-run corporate bailout agency. The cosmetics business is already in the hands of a new independent company owned by the agency. The latest revival plan, unveiled earlier...

EDITORIALS

Jun 3, 2004

Copyright ethics for the digital age

As a result of rapid advances in the digitization and networking of information, the environment surrounding copyrights is undergoing dramatic change. Unfortunately, understanding of copyrights in Japan is far from adequate. Culture won't be nurtured unless the ethics exist in which the beneficiaries...

EDITORIALS

Jun 2, 2004

Striking a balance in Geneva

The World Trade Organization opens three days of farm trade talks in Geneva on Wednesday. Japan, which maintains high tariffs on rice and other sensitive products, is likely to find itself on the defensive, as it did in previous talks. But maintaining a rigid policy of protection is not a sensible option....

EDITORIALS

Jun 1, 2004

An 'environmental revolution'

A revolution means a radical change. That's exactly what the government's latest environment report calls for. It stresses the importance of building a new socio-economic society through environmental conservation -- a society in which "environment-friendly" technologies are broadly blended with the...

EDITORIALS

May 31, 2004

More debate on contingency bills

Japan's efforts to update its security legislation reached yet another milestone on May 20 when a Lower House committee approved a set of backup bills for laws dealing with military crises directly affecting the country. The package, if enacted, will complete three decades of security-building efforts...

EDITORIALS

May 30, 2004

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal, still far from over, has prompted a lot of reflection and a fair degree of consensus in the United States. Some, like U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, may quibble over whether the treatment meted out to Iraqi prisoners constituted "abuse" rather than "torture,"...

EDITORIALS

May 29, 2004

Reinstating a jury system

Japan is set to introduce a new criminal trial system by the end of this decade, in which professional and lay judges will deal with major cases on an equal footing. A judicial reform bill calling for the creation of the saiban-in (citizen judge) system passed the Upper House last week, making it certain...

EDITORIALS

May 28, 2004

Banks and their 'debt of gratitude'

It appears that most of Japan's top banks are making good progress toward cleaning up their nonperforming loans. They may not be out of the woods yet, but their latest financial reports indicate that they are on track to meeting a government target for bad-debt reduction in fiscal 2004, which ends March...

EDITORIALS

May 27, 2004

Savagery in Sudan

A campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide has been reported from Sudan. In acts all too reminiscent of the horrors committed in Rwanda a decade ago, the government of Sudan has condoned, if not abetted, crimes against humanity committed against its own citizens. And once again the world is standing...

EDITORIALS

May 26, 2004

A good start for Mr. Chen

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has passed the first test of his new administration. His inauguration speech was conciliatory in tone, reaching out to the millions of Taiwanese who voted against him and to the mainland by pledging not to take action that would increase tensions between the governments...

EDITORIALS

May 25, 2004

Mr. Singh's promise

The selection of Mr. Manmohan Singh as prime minister designate in India is a welcome development. Mr. Singh is a known quantity, committed to continuing the positive legacies of the former government while smoothing their rough edges. Equally important, his appointment represents the healing of one...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.

Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go

By Kazuaki Nagata and Richard Meyer

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

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